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The Legend Of The Nile

Author:Dr. Zahi Hawass

Date: 2017-02-06 14:11:17

Category:pharaonic civilization

Tags:Kom Ombo Temble

You cannot come to Cairo without visiting the Cairo museum. My friend Moustafa El-Fiki, our famous politician, said to me that when he visits this museum, that he feels the magic of the pharaohs. I wrote a book on the twelve pieces, Which I most love to see at the museum. One of them is the statue of khafre that captures my heart and if you look at it from the profile and see that hawk on the head of the king is taking him and flying to the sky. Then, you go to visit Saqqara, the famous site that contains the step pyramid, the first stone pyramid. This site also contains the pyramids of Dynasties 5 and 6, as well as tombs dating.

My most important achievement at Saqqara was the discovery of a queen pyramid near the pyramid of Teti; which I believe belongs to his queen mother Seshti. Also, I found large Old Kingdom cemetery at Gisr El Modeir. Recently, I Was head of committee to determine the conversation required to restore our monuments we need funds and therefore we need tourists to come back. We believe or monuments are our shared heritage and belong to everyone all over the world. We know that queens were buried inside the step pyramid. It is the only Old Kingdom pyramid that has such legends. I began to search on the west side of the pyramid that had never been tested and there we found a second Dynasty tomb. I was hoping to find the tomb of Imhotep Walter Emery, the great English Archaeologist, who spent most of his life searching for the tomb of Imhotep and then his assistant, Geoffrey Martin, Continued the search but the tomb was never found.

The Serapium at Saqqara was the burial place for the Apis bull. The construction of the serapium began in Dynasty 18. You will be amazed to see the great huge granite sarcophagus that once contained the mummies of the Apis bull. Cracks appeared on the celling of the underground tunnels and we made a major project to restore the Serapium. This greate work was done under Engineer Ibrahim Mehleb’s supervision; who was the head of the Arab Contractors. The pyramid of unas is the first pyramid that contained the Pyramid text inscribed on the burial chamber of the pyramid. These texts were written to help the king to descend and ascend from and to the sky. I closed this pyramid for more than twenty years to preserve the beautiful inscription, but the Ministry of Antiquities opened it to the public for the first time to attract tourists.

Luxor, Thebes, the magical city that gripped the world’s imagination is a place that cannot be missed when visiting Egypt. In November 4, 1922, Howard Carter stumbled upon the tomb of Tutunkhamun. The west bank of Luxor was primarily reserved for the tombs of the kings, their families, couriers and administrators.

The valley of the kings always generates exciting news. Two new tombs were discovered after the tomb of Tutunkhamun. The first was KF63 that was found by the late Otto Shaden that was the embalming cache of Tutunkhamun and the other tomb was of the singer of Amon in Dynasty 21, known as KV64, I Was lucky to rediscover KV53 that was found more than 100 years ago, but were able to locate the tomb and found inside important objects there are many tombs that still wait to be discovered in the west bank, such as Amenhotep I, and in the Valley of the kings, tombs of Thuthmuse II, Ramasess VII, and the queen of Dynasty 18.

Through temple of Karnak, located on the East bank, we can see the history of Egypt from the Middle Kingdom until the Roman period. The great discovery of the statues cache that was found in the Great Pillared hall is one of the most important discoveries in this temple. Another cache was found inside the pillared hall of Amenhotep III, inside the temple of Luxor. Inside the Luxor Museum, you can see the statues that were found inside the temple. The extension in Luxor Museum is called Egypt in the Golden Age. It is one of the most significant exhibits as it is amazing and I am proud that it was done under my supervision. The Mummification Museum is another great one. News Spread all over the world that the tomb of Nefertiti is located behind the north and the west walls of the tomb of Tutunkhamun, but because this theory has no scientific basis, it went away with the wind. There is no evidence to support this claim and the radar showed nothing.

Egypt cruise on the Nile, I call it the legend of the Nile. It is four or seven nights as we call it once upon a time. You will visit first the Temple of Edfu. This temple was dedicated to the god Horus, who was considered both a sky and a sun god. This Temple of Edfu dominates the site that began during the reign of Ptolemy III (237 B.C), on the site of Ramaside Temple. It is one of the best-preserved monuments of ancient Egypt and it is the second largest temple in the country, just behind Karnak. The triad worshipped there was Horus, Hathor, mistress of the nearby temple of Dendra, and their son Horus Semataury or Horus, who unifies the two lands. An essential celebration at Edfu was the feast of the scared marriage, which became a natonal holiday during the Thuthmose III. Another stop is the temple of Khnum at Essna and it was the cult center of this god. The remains preserved on the East Bank date to Greco-Roman period, and now consist primarily of a single hypostyle hall begun by Potlomy VI and completed in the 3rd century A.D. the temple was dedicated to both Khnum with his consorts Nebetu and Menhit and the child god Haka (magic) and to the war goddess Neith and her son, the crocodile god Ihqmenefer and Tutu, the messenger god. Then we reach my favorite temple, the Temple of Kom Ombo. It is dedicated to the crocodile and ‘’Sobek’’ and Horus Sobek was a god linked with the flooding of the Nile and with fertility. He was also a symbol of Royal Power. I was able to make a unique museum. The Crocodile Museum. It is the only museum in the world that is only made for crocodiles.

The great artist and sculpture Dr. Mahmoud Abde, Aziz, the Head of the Pharaonic sector in the supreme council of Antiquities were able to accomplish It. the crocodiles were shown in the museum as if they were jumping in the Nile, and shown statues and objects of the crocodile god. I made the site management for the museum and made it possible for the visitors who came by the sea to see this beautiful temple. This temple was erected during the Ptolemaic period, when the town of Kom Ombo became the administrative center for Upper Egypt. The temple commands a high promontory overlooking the Nile at the north of an important agricultural region.

The layout of Kom Ombo Temple is in one way very standard, with an enclosure wall, a pylon fronting a courtyard, then two hypostyle halls, an offering chamber, and a sanctuary. However, it is quite unusual in that it is actually a double temple, divided down the middle. The south side was dedicated to Sobek with his consort Hathor and their son Horus, while the north was sacred to Herwer (Horus the elder) his consort Tasenat nofret (the beautiful sister) and Panebtawy (the lord of the lords).